Family Cycling Adventures

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Family Cycling Adventures

Here’s a great idea for being active and spending time with those you love, even during social distancing in the pandemic.

child riding bicycleThe Ernsting family meet up for family cycling adventures on nearby trails.  Kids, parents and grandparents can all join in.  Pack a delicious lunch or snack as an added enticement for the trip!  Make sure everyone brings water to drink, uses sunscreen and wears a helmet.

Going exploring on bikes relates to several of the Pathway Landmarks:

  • LANDMARK 4 – Visit a favourite outdoor place every week (Age 4-5 years)
  • LANDMARK 9 – Visit an outdoor place that is special to you (Age 6-7 years)
  • LANDMARK 13 – Travel by yourself or with a friend on a familiar route (Age 8-9 years); Let the children help plan the route if you’re working on Landmark 13
  • LANDMARK 14 – Try several kinds of outdoor recreation that don’t need gasoline or electricity (Age 8-9 years)

If you live in the Peterborough region, we’re blessed with wonderful trail systems, both in town and in the county.  We also have great cycling support services.  Get started close to home with the City of Peterborough Trails Map.  Peterborough and the Kawarthas also have some great cycling route maps and other info for keen cyclists.

Keep trips short if you’re travelling with young children, and lengthen the trip as kids build strength and confidence.  Try cycling to a place where kids can explore and play, to break up the trip and give kids a rest.  Sharpen your eyes and ears while you’re travelling to listen for new sounds or look for interesting bugs, birds or animals along the way.

If you need help with repairing or finding a bike, or some guidance on how to cycle safely, contact BIKE, Peterborough’s community bike shop.

BIKE and GreenUP have changed-up their Pedal Power program, normally offered to schools in June.  This year, it’s Pedal Power from Home and is available to families online.  While the available prizes wrap up at the end of June, the excellent cycling workshops are available throughout the summer.  They’re filled with fun activities, bike drills and information focused on road safety and bike handling skills that families can do from home.

Bird of the Month

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Bird of the Month:

Meet the Yellow Warbler!

Yellow WarblerSummer is a perfect time to go searching for new feathered friends. This perky ray of sunshine is quite common in our area in spring and summer. Incredibly, the tiny Yellow Warbler flies all the way from South and Central America every spring to find places to breed in North America. Look for reddish streaks on the breast (males), a black beak and sweet black eyes in an unmarked face. Listen for its song – it sounds like it’s saying “Sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet…”

Yellow warblers feed mostly on insects, and can be found around woodland edges, streamsides and brushy areas.  Look for them in late spring and early summer, as they often start their long migration south during the month of August.  To learn the yellow warbler’s song, check out the Cornell birding website, ‘All About Birds.’  Getting to know the birds around you is part of LANDMARK 12 (Who Else Lives in Your Neighbourhood?).

Don’t be fooled by another common yellow bird – the American Goldfinch.  Male goldfinches are also bright yellow in the summer, but they have a black cap and black wings.  Goldfinches stay here for the winter, and are commonly seen all year at bird feeders.

For a bigger challenge for older children and youth, try reporting your bird sightings to eBird to help track trends in bird populations worldwide.  This is LANDMARK 22  (Become a Citizen Scientist).  Check out the Merlin website to help you learn to identify the birds you see.  Watching birds is great fun, and a good focus for walks outdoors.

Photo by Kyle Dueck

Ideas Aplenty…

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Ideas Aplenty…

Our thanks to Kathy MacMillan-Jones for sharing these ideas for summer family fun with kids of many different ages.  Remember to report what you did with the new Landmark reporting form on the Pathway website!

Early Years (0-3)

   LANDMARK 1 (Explore Outdoors) and LANDMARK 3 (Exercise the Senses)
  • Look for little things to explore that are within reach and eyesight – an ant hill, a worm, a flower budding, Worm in handinteresting tree bark, or a patch of grass. Draw your child’s attention to some detail like “the bark feels bumpy”, “the grass tickles”.  See if they can notice something as well. It’s helpful if your child can actively participate, like digging in a patch of dirt or “hugging” a tree. Make a little rhyme for the life you are noticing like “my big tree is bigger than me” or “squirmy squirmy wormy worm” that you can recall later. Try to revisit that spot once a week for several weeks to look for changes/similarities.
  • Go for a walk in a variety of weathers – rainy (look for puddles), hot (look for shade), cold (run to stay warm) etc.

Ages 4-5 years

   LANDMARK 7 (Share a Nature-Based Story, Song or Poem)
  • Make a poem about all the things you notice this week outside and pin it on your fridge.  Use a pattern starter, for instance,   “I like” X 3, or “I hear”, “I smell”
  • For example:  I like (the lilacs), I like (the wind), I like (the ants)
   LANDMARK 8 (Create a nature art project)
  • Gather some loose natural material and create a design on the grass or sidewalk using cut grass, pinecones, pebbles, sand, etc. Take a picture and share with a friend. See if your friend can make something to send to you!

Ages 8-9 years

   LANDMARK 13 (Travel by yourself on a familiar route)
  • Make a list of different ways you can go up and down your street by yourself – walking, running, hopping, etc. Predict how long each method will take and then record the actual time. Challenge a friend to try your ways and have them think of one more. Keep the game going as long as you can. How many ways did you think of together? What was the fastest way? What was the slowest? Which one did you feel most proud of? Why?

Ages 10-11 years

   LANDMARK 18 (Create a video about a natural area)
  • Choose one natural area you have been to. ReseaChild on path in the woodsrch an animal, a plant, and a tree that grows there. Make a video that highlights what you love about this place, and some cool facts you know about at least 3 things that live there – an info-mercial!
  • If it is a provincial or national park, be sure to send them an email to tell them what you have made, and share it if possible. If it is a neighbourhood place, share with a neighbour and ask them what they love about that space. Maybe you can do a neighbourhood survey to see if 10 people all love the same thing!

Great News!

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Great News!

Expanded Support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation

We have received very good news that we’re delighted to share.  The Ontario Trillium Foundation has approved significant funding for a three year expansion of the Pathway Project!  That means we’ll be able to support our goal that every young person in our region can experience the 30 Landmarks outlined in our Pathway Guidebook.  We can continue to work together to nurture the stewards of tomorrow!

Now that we’ve completed our pilot phase, we’re ready to expand our reach in a big way!  While we’ll be focusing most of our supports in the Peterborough region, anyone can participate, and work through the Landmark activities as their children/students learn and grow.

boy and girl looking in waterThe 30 Landmarks are a great place to start for anyone who doesn’t already spend a lot of time outdoors, and for those who do, we’re setting up lots of ways to share ideas – by reports submitted to the website, through social media, newsletters, magazine articles and through the regional workshops we’ll be hosting for teachers and parents.

The Pathway Project is a collective of many regional partners, directed by Camp Kawartha.  The Trillium funding will help many of these agencies provide guidance and support to schools and families as we build a culture that nurtures stewardship and kinship in every child.  We can now help with the cost of schoolyard projects, art materials, ‘loose parts’ play materials, bus subsidies and expert visits, as long as they help children with Landmark experiences.  More details soon, as we ramp up the expanded project.  It’s all very exciting!

Especially after spending so much time indoors and with limited contact with others during the pandemic, our kids need the Pathway’s Landmarks now more than ever.  Opportunities to explore and treasure the outdoors, and build meaningful and supportive relationships with others in the community, will be important steps in restoring wellbeing in our children and youth, as well as the adults who care about them!  We hope you and the children in your life will travel the Pathway with us.